Appalachian Midwifery

12/11/2025

11/22/2025

There comes a time when the noise quiets, and you must remember who you are and why you began this work.
Midwifery is not an easy road.
It asks for your days, your nights, your hands, and your heart.

It tests your steadiness in the face of births and the spaces between.
And sometimes, it is not the challenging births that bruise us most, but the politics, the whispers, the misunderstandings that find their way even into communities meant to be rooted in love.

I am hearing from so many midwives navigating this season.
You carry the weight of long days and complex births.
You carry the quiet moments that test your heart.
I hear the doubts. I hear the reflections.
I hear the times you wish you could have done something differently.
I hear the moments when your own humanity comes back to meet you.
I hear the courage it takes to keep showing up as the best version of yourself.

These moments test us.
They remind us that midwifery asks not for perfection, but for presence anchored in skill, and the courage to keep showing up with integrity, compassion, and humility.

Often, the hardest part is not the challenging birth itself, but the echoes afterward.
The words that travel quietly from one midwife to another, the stories told without context or care.
Some of that comes from wounds, from those still healing from systems that forgot gentleness, but it does not make the sting any less sharp.

You will be questioned by some for every choice, every rhythm, every instinct.
For the ways you step in and the ways you hold back.
For the delicate balance between waiting and intervening.

Everyone will have an opinion, and some will speak with certainty about moments they never witnessed and choices they never had to make.

Let them talk. Let them say what they will.

You are not here to please them.
You are here to witness birth, to hold mother and baby in safety and presence, to honor family, and to tend the moment between worlds.

It took me many years to find peace in who I am as a midwife, to release the need for validation and to embrace standing fully aligned with my calling.
Be patient with yourself.
Each birth is a teacher.
With every one, you become stronger, wiser, and more fully yourself.

Remember, the only midwife you should ever be in competition with is the one you were yesterday.
When your practice is built on truth, care, and alignment, time itself will tell the story for you.

Be bold and unapologetic about who you are.
Be honest, especially in that very first meeting with a prospective client.
Tell her who you are, the training and experience that shape your care, how you practice, and what matters to you.

Let her see the real you from the beginning.
That truth will call in the families meant for you and gently release the ones who are not.
You will not be the midwife for everyone, and you were never meant to be.

At the end of the day, we cannot control what others say, how they perceive, or the stories they tell.
What we can control is how we show up, with integrity, compassion, clear boundaries, and love for our clients, our community, and ourselves.

Stand beside those who stand beside you.
Pour into those who pour back into you.
And for the rest, let them go.

Find the table where your spirit is seen.
Find the midwives who speak life into one another.
Find the places where wisdom is shared, not hoarded, and where laughter rises easily between stories only midwives could understand.

There are circles that heal instead of wound.
Where compassion runs deeper than comparison.
Where sisterhood is not a slogan but a practice.

You will know them by the peace you feel when you sit down.
By how your nervous system exhales in their presence.
By how truth feels welcome there.

Seek them.
Build with them.
Become the kind of midwife who holds that kind of space, steadily, fully, and with care.

Because your people are out there.
The ones who will stand beside you when storms come.
The ones who will celebrate your integrity.
The ones who will remind you of your calling when the noise grows loud.
And when you show up in your full authenticity, they will recognize you.
They have been waiting for you too.

-Midwife Alyssa

11/08/2025

Happy Friday from our Clinic team!

The poor, remote communities surrounding the Clinic need us more than ever as they face mounting health and economic challenges. We work in a fragile region in the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Please support us today: https://nicaclinic.org/individual-donations/

10/08/2025

An incredible new study found that pregnant women who consume just 6 dates a day in the 4 weeks leading up to their due date were 74% more dilated upon their arrival to the hospital, had a 77% shorter first stage of labor and a 42% lower rate of caesarean sections.

Eating dates in the late stages of pregnancy lead to higher cervical dilation upon hospital admission because the fruit contains nutrients that influence oxytocin receptors, preparing the cervix and uterus for labor by increasing muscle response to oxytocin and other labor-supporting hormones. Dates are a rich source of energy from natural sugars and fats and also contain prostaglandins, which contribute to cervical ripening. Additionally, they provide serotonin, calcium, and tannins, which contribute to powerful uterine contractions.

Eating dates in the late stages of pregnancy shortens the first stage of labor due to their ability to stimulate the production of prostaglandins, which promote cervical ripening (softening and thinning of the cervix) and increase uterine contractions. Dates also contain tannins, which have a similar effect, and provide a natural sugar source for energy during labor. Some studies even suggest that dates can increase uterine sensitivity to oxytocin, leading to more effective contractions and a quicker and smoother labor process.

These actions are also the exact reason why women who eat dates in the late stages of pregnancy and far less likely to need a c-section!

The most common recommendation is for women to begin eating 6 dates a day starting in their 37th week of pregnancy.
PMID: 40322306, 21280989

SEE ALSO: https://www.pelvicphysio.co.nz/the-sweet-secret-to-a-smoother-labour-dates

10/06/2025

This gave me full body chills...
"👁️ Did you ever wonder why the baby’s taken across the room? Why the cord is clamped fast, the mother left shaking, the lights so bright it feels like judgment?

Did you ever feel the stillness—the eerie quiet when the father’s hands are empty, the grandmother’s not in the room, and the newborn is nowhere near a breast?

It’s not just medicine.
It’s not just policy.
It’s a ritual.
And it’s not ours.

🧬 They inject pig-derived Pitocin to mimic the hormone God designed to flood a woman’s brain in labor. But it doesn’t reach the brain. It only contracts the body.
The love doesn’t flow.
The imprint doesn’t land.
The bonding doesn’t seal.
Just pressure. Just force.

💉 Synthetic love.
⚡ Counterfeit release.
🧠 Neurological silence.

And while the woman is watched but not touched, while the baby is wiped but not suckled, while the father is praised for being “supportive” but not leading—
they cut the thread.

👶 The mother-baby dyad was made to reflect divine intimacy. To pass down trust, peace, protection.
But when it’s broken—
the body remembers.
The child stores the grief.
The mother learns disconnection.
The father fades from view.

That’s how it starts. But it doesn’t end there.

Then come the bottles.
The cribs.
The high chairs.
The eight-hour separations called school.
The praise of independence that is really just early detachment.
The lie that the nuclear family is enough. That Mom runs the home. That Dad is just for weekends. That children are safest raised by strangers in buildings funded by gods they do not know.

🕳️ We are not looking at broken systems.
We are looking at precision-engineered fragmentation.

And you feel it. You’ve felt it all along.
That something was taken before you could name it.
That someone was missing even while you were being told you had “everything you need.”

But listen: the lie only wins if we let it.
And we won’t.
We are pulling the babies back to the breast.
We are restoring the mother's voice in the birth room.
We are putting grandmothers back at the table.
We are praying over the placenta.
We are keeping them close at night.
We are burning the counterfeit and walking in the design.
This is not soft work.
It is a holy war"
- written upon the heart of almost every midwife

- author - Cardinal Birth Midwifery Service

🤎🤎👼🏼🤎🤎

09/25/2025

By Suzanne Arms and Jennifer Margulis(See their bios at the end.)Babies are most often conceived out of lo******ng, a wonderful and fun activity (as long as it’s mutually consensual) that may take place at home, in a hotel room, or in a private corne

09/14/2025

09/12/2025

Sweet gratitude from a current client thanks, Chelsey.

09/11/2025

How long does it take for us to make Birth better in America?

An excerpt from an interview with Marsden Wagner, MD, former director of Women's & Children's Health for the World Health Organization.

09/07/2025

09/07/2025